Port Adelaide Carry The Heaviest Toll — An Estimated 224 Games Gone
After Round 17, the medicare ladder puts Port Adelaide top of the casualty count and Fremantle almost untouched. Every figure here is a modelled estimate, not an official club count.
The shape of it after Round 17 is a long one. At the top sits Port Adelaide, who have lost an estimated 224 player-games to injury this season — more football than any club in the competition. Behind them come Essendon on about 184, Richmond roughly 163, West Coast near 160 and Sydney around 149.
At the other end, Fremantle have got off the lightest by a distance, missing only about 36 games. That leaves a spread of roughly 188 games between the hardest-hit side and the healthiest — a wide gulf, and a reminder that no two clubs have paid the same price this year.
It was a quiet week on the ladder. No club's toll shifted it far, so the order reads much as it did before.
Port Adelaide sit alone at the top, carrying an estimated 224 player-games lost. Read plainly, that is the better part of a full season's worth of selections spread across the year — a load that reshapes a side week to week.
When a club sheds that much football, the cost is rarely one big name. It is the steady churn: fresh faces asked to hold roles, combinations that never settle, a list stretched thinner than the coach would choose. Essendon, on about 184 estimated games, are carrying their own heavy version of the same story.
The honest way to weigh a toll like Port Adelaide's is as context, not excuse. An estimated 224 games gone is a genuine burden, and it belongs in any fair reading of how their season has unfolded — set it against their results and judge accordingly.
At the foot of the ladder, Fremantle's estimated 36 games offer the cleaner picture: whatever their year has held, injury has asked little of them. Between those two poles sit clubs like Richmond and West Coast, each near 160, quietly carrying more than the table alone would suggest.
This week added nothing dramatic. No new movement of note on the ladder, which lets the season-long shape stand on its own.
So here is what each club has lost, estimated and modelled rather than counted: Port Adelaide the most at about 224 games, Fremantle the least at roughly 36, and a wide field between them.
How much slack that earns any club is yours to weigh.
That is what each club has lost to injury, estimated — offered as context, never an excuse. How much slack you cut a side for its casualty list is yours to weigh.